WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, June 29, 2020

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• ???? Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~10,200,000; deaths: ~503,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~2,565,000; deaths: ~126,000

• Source: Johns Hopkins University

1/ Russian intelligence officers offered bounties to Taliban militants to kill U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan over the past year, according to a classified U.S. intelligence assessment. Trump and administration officials were briefed on the Russian operation in recent months, while the U.S. was in the midst of peace negotiations with the Taliban to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan. The White House’s National Security Council also discussed the issue at an interagency meeting in late March. Additionally, U.S. intelligence officials and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted superiors about the covert Russian operation as early as January 2020. U.S. intelligence officials say the bounties are believed to have resulted in the deaths of multiple U.S. troops in the region over the last few years, though it is unclear exactly how many were targeted or killed under the program. The same Russian unit has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert actions in Europe and has offered rewards for successful attacks in the past. (New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / Washington Post / The Guardian)

2/ Trump denied receiving an intelligence briefing on the alleged Russian bounty program, tweeting that “nobody briefed or told me” and that he had “just” heard about it. Trump also claimed that the intelligence community didn’t brief Pence or White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about the Taliban bounty payments because “they did not find this info credible.” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, meanwhile, claimed that Trump and other top administration officials were not “briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence.” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe also “confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence” related to a Russian bounty, and that all news reports “about an alleged briefing are inaccurate.” Trump added that “nobody has been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration” and called for the New York Times, which broke the story, to “reveal” its sourcing. (Associated Press / Axios /